Communication (old post)

Since I'm really interested in human relationships, behavior(s) and generally in psychology, I like to think and reflect quite a lot about my own feelings, thoughts and behavior at certain moments. And when it comes to relationships, regardless if they are romantic, friendships or between co-workers, I always pay attention to how our behavior changes or what side of ourselves do we show to the other person or people, with whom we are communicating or even the way we communicate and so on. 

In this post, I will focus mostly on romantic relationships and my thoughts about communication. I do think that some of the things I will share, actually apply for any kind of relationship between people, so even if you are not that interested in reading about romantic relationship, feel free to take these ideas and apply them in every aspect of communication in your life.

To be honest, I don't think that are necessary bad people with whom we start relationships. I think most problems in relationships arise from lack of good communication, misunderstandings and to some extend not putting enough effort (sometimes) to work on these problems which again is connected with lack of communication.  

I believe that learning to communicate better with others is something that we learn. It is a skill that we improve over time. it is not something we are born with, but rather we train as we grow up. And as you probably have read or can read in many psychology articles, learning to communicate and how we communicate begins often with our childhood and how our parents, grandparents, siblings or close relatives communicated with us when we were babies or just still very young. They were our models and deffinitely played a big role in helping us learn to communicate and to a big extend shaping our personality.

And I think that the first thing we have to do if we want to improve our communication skills in relationships with people, is become aware of how we grew up and how we were raised. And by doing this, try to understand ourselves better - why we do what we do, why we behaive the why we do, why we feel the way we do etc. Getting to know ourselves better, becoming aware of who we are, can greatly help us understand more the way we communicate with other people. And examples of that could be "Why do i always feel anxious when I am arround many people?" or "Why is it hard for me to say no to something which I dislike" or "Why do I feel too self-conscious at certain times when talking to certain people" and so on and so on. My point is, becoming more aware of these and figuiring out who you are, can greatly boost your self-esteem, make you feel better about yourself -  make you feel good about who you are AND on top of that, improve your communication skills, because when we feel confident in ourselves, when we fee good about ourselves, we also communicate better. And i don't think I have to give any examples for that, because you're all aware of it and have probably noticed it for yourselves. 

Now of course, there will never be an answer that is completely accurate to why we communicate or behaive in a certain way towards the other (X) person. And I believe that the reason for that is, is because emotions and thoughts are usually complicated. When we form a connection with someone, there is not just ONE motive in our reason for talking to this person, there are many motives that play a role, with some playing a bigger role than others. Of course we might not be aware of all of these, because although we communicate consciously, some of our motives might be happening on a subconscious level. And what I mean by all of this, is something like this. Imagine that you are talking to a person that you just met and you are wondering WHY you are behaving the way you are towards them, right? So now imagine that your motives are like slice of pizza which all form a big circle (a full pizza),  but the slices are not equally cut, instead each slice has a different size and it looks a little bit like this: 

Now this pizza chart is just an example of some of the emotions and feelings that you might be feeling while talking to that other person and as I said earlier, we can never be aware of absolutely everything that we are feeling at a certain moment, because it happens on a subconscious level, but what we could do is become a bit more aware of some of our feelings and emotions when talking to someone. Why is that important for relationships? Because it shows  you how many things actually affected the way we talk with people! What do I exactly? Well just have a look at the pizza chart: 

The way we communicate with people does not only form based on how we feel about ourselves, but outside factors also play a big role! Maybe the weather is great today and that made me very cheerful and talkative. Maybe I experienced something bad today and I feel a bit down and not in the best mood. Maybe I am stressed out and too captured in my own self that the reason I am talking to people is not out of genuine interest towards them, but rather to build this image of myself in their minds, which I want them to have and think of me (as such a person). And the list (or pizza slices...) goes on and on! 

So why do I need to be aware of this a bit more? Because it can help you improve your relationships with people and make them longer-lasting, make you feel better about yourself and more connected with yourself and it also helps you understand and sympathize with people and how they might be feeling at certain times.  

So now let's talk about romantic relationships. As you can see there is always something you can work on and improve about yourself without being in a romantic relationship. There always is. In fact, I believe that it is never-ending and as I've mentioned in another post, we will never be perfect and that is absolutely fine, because nobody is! But what we can do, is just try our best, for ourselves and for the people we care about :) ! 

Alright, so now imagine that you're in a relationship or maybe you really are in one and everything is going fine for some time in the beginning, but after that period is over, you start facing your first struggles as a couple and problems begin to appear. So how do yo handle it? You talk. You talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. You talk about it as much as it needs talking. To the bottom of it...you repeat like old grannies and grandpas to each other, you remind yourselves and each other what you need to improve and you keep on trying and trying. Why do you have to talk so much and why do you have to repeat so much? Because you and your partner are 2 different individuals and you need to form a healthy relationship between each other and LEARN to communicate in a healthy way. You have to figuire out how to best communicate with each other - you have to be aware of how both of you as individuals communicate when you are in a relationship. For example: Are you the type of person that likes to avoid and ignore problems, maybe not even talk about them openly? Or maybe you are too clingy and sometimes causing a problem when there is none? Or maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Of course "talking" in a relationship is easier said (great joke) than done...

Because this post is getting a bit long and I have a lot of other things to do, I will divide it into parts, but I just wanted to add one thing to the "talking and repeating" that I just mentioned above. 

Have you ever wondered why old people repeat so much? Have you ever wandered why parents or your older siblings repeated things so much when you were younger? For example: " Don't do this or do that! Write your homework! Don't stay up late!" and so on and so on. Why were they putting so much effort into it? Why are they even still doing it to some extend now, although we have grown up. Because they care about you. Because they love you. Because they want you to feel good about yourself, they want you in their life - as a child, as a broher or sister, as a partner (boyfriend/girlfriend) or just as a great friend. And because they think that you are amazing and they don't want to lose you, they keep repeating and talking and "annoying" you :) ! Because they want you in their lives! 

And lastly, i was recently watching a video on YouTube about a freshly married couple in Japan. I'm really interested in China and Japan (reason why I am studying Japanese and later Chinese is because I want to work and live there, maybe in both countries and later study physics there too, but anyways...) What the couple said and what I have been thiking and knowing for quite the time is that, when you have a problem in your relationship - TALK about it as soon as possible. Do not supress it, do not ignore it for tomorrow or for the next week or for the next month and so on. Face your partner, look them in the eyes, explain how you feel, listen to them, talk about the issue - for 5 minutes, for 10 mnutes, for 15 minutes, MAKE TIME for it, then forgive each other, try to understand and if you feel tired AFTER talking about it, have some time and space for yourself, and think a little bit on your own.But always, always adress the issue when it happens! Not afterwards! It will not go away! It will not disappear on it's own! It will come out again and again and again in one shape or another, no matter how many times you try to avoid it and shrug it under your carpet (relationship), things will add up and one day all of the crap that you put under your carpet will start smelling and even coming out from the sides and you'll have to throw that carpet away...because you didn't take care of it on time. Yes, I meant ending the relationship. 

So that's all I have for now. Communicating is something we learn through out our whole lives. And as I said, "talking" is easier said than done.

P.S. It is still there, you can still find it hanging on the tree branch. My wish back then was related with this topic, but never came true.